Thank you Perna...

I appreciate your thoughts and your sharing your experience. I sure hope that I will have a similar positive experience. I have heard that therapy continues a couple of years beyond therapy as things continue to percolate and I suppose closure continues at it's own pace.

I have been in therapy ...goodness... for half of my life...about 24 years now and that is quite a stretch. The wounds have intermittently been open for all that time... I suppose different wounds at different times... and they are all intermingled... OUCH.

I have had two T's primarily (pdocs) and the first one did retire. I remember that process with sadness and beauty and he did actually open the door to my current pdoc as that one bacame my "medicine man" and so there was a few month seguae (?) but I kept going. I was not done with my work.

There was a time when this new one... (no longer new...haha) set a date for therapy to stop. That was traumatic for me but I was seeing him for med checks and then monthly... then back in to work. I fear this date picking in the future... I suppose I rather felt that as a way of abandonment in that I was not ready at that time but wala... It happened. So I will try to address these fears more so in future visits.

THere is a connection on this warm fuzzy thing.... My first doc was a warm fuzzy. This guy has a different technique...and is distanced though close...lol.. hard to describe but the boundaries are definite. Last session he talked of how my parents have kept me distanced for my life. I find that this could be a recreation of that for some crappy ...or marvelous.... reason or could speak to his own limitations.

I suppose the idea of acceptance with pdoc 1 was easier for me as he was retiring.... it was time really. The second one (current) had more of an option.... though there must have been justification in his mind...

The idea of such a commute to therapy Perna is quite impressive and I am sure gave you quite a bit of time to prepare and work through. Was that due to availability or desire for confidentiality or? I admire that journey for you. I hear some say that they have no one they can see and I know.... if there is a will (such as yours) there is a way.

I love the way you transitioned in to non-therapy life. How wonderful to be able to quit work and to have that wonderful trip. I wonder if there was a feeling of loss or victory after ther trip. ... or both..would be understandable.

I am amazed that there are on line therapists... and wonder how you found one... though that is a just a curiosity. I suppose the connection on line would be way different from that in person. But very interesting to me.

Your message to me is one of hope. Particularly the following:

**It still amazes me that I don't have all the "noise" in my head anymore, am not continually distracted by my "issues" so that I can't attend to whatever I feel like attending to. I use to spend a lot of time with my symptoms and use to wonder what I would "do" if I didn't have to spend my time the way I did. Now I don't have any symptoms and can barely remember what it was like before; kind of like a really bad nightmare and now I've awakened.**

It actually brings me to tears a bit this morning but I have been so raw lately. I suppose I wish to keep the wounds open as long as they need to be to be productive but after such a long time I wonder how that may be. I want so much of where I am emotionally to be healed. SIgh....

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your journey. I appreciate it....and it gives me hope. Hope and fight are two words that keep me directed positively ....even in the darkness.